From populations to molecules: a life in food and health

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

When I was a young teenager in the 1960s, Ireland was embarking on a new industrialised pathway where the food industry was central. I wanted to study food science but no such degrees existed in Dublin at the time and so I opted to study Agricultural Science, specialising in Chemistry. In hindsight, this was an odd speciality to pick since, for my final exams in secondary school I studied Irish, English, French, Latin, physics and mathematics. I had never studied either biology or chemistry both of which would be central to my university studies but, it turned out that not only did I really enjoy these new subjects, but I was good at them. I had a wonderful 5 years at University College Dublin where I was active in left wing politics and was a keen debater. Based on my final exam marks I was awarded a scholarship which I used to complete a master’s degree working on the dietary determinants of branched chain fatty acids in the adipose tissue of lambs. I enjoyed research and decided to pursue a PhD. I applied to many universities and was offered places at Cambridge, Wageningen, Calgary and Sydney. At that time, Sydney University Veterinary School was one of the global leaders in several areas of animal science: nutrition, genetics and reproduction. I accepted an offer of a PhD with the academic duties of a Teaching Fellow. In January 1973, my wife and I arrived in Sydney and I began my PhD working on the digestive physiology of neonatal lambs. The lambs had dual canulae fitted at the jejunum and distal ileum with the digestive flow exteriorised through a vinyl canula fitted with a sampling tap. The lambs were fed on experimental milks. It was hard work, 7 days a week during the long season from spring to autumn. Both my MSc and PhD training, gave me a passion about experimental design, analytical chemistry and biology and statistics all of which would serve me well as a foundation for my future career. In 1976, my wife Jo, pregnant on our third child, and I returned to Ireland where I took up a post-doctoral post in the Agricultural Institute in Dublin. It was not a particularly stimulating post and neither myself or Jo were especially happy. I began to dabble in human nutrition using household budget and consumer price data and, I began to look around for something more challenging.